Bake & Share raises over £500 (and the roof!)

13 December 2016

Dawn Dance, from Weston-Super-Mare, lost her much-loved stepfather, Mick Cooling (79), to pancreatic cancer in October 2016, a fortnight after his diagnosis. The speed of his deterioration shocked the family to the core.

“I still can’t believe that someone could die so quickly,” she says. “He’d had abdominal and back pain for a couple of weeks and had gone to A&E when the pain worsened. The scan showed that it had already spread to his liver, bowel and lungs. He was diagnosed on the 11th, came home on the 18th and died on the 25th. We hear so much good news about treatments that can cure other cancers, it’s hard to understand why pancreatic cancer can still take someone within weeks. Grief affects different people in different ways, and for me the shock and anger compelled me into action.” Dawn organised a Bake & Share event at her house on 18 November, letting her school mum friends know and sharing the event through Facebook. She raised an incredible £515 in one morning.“Everyone pitched in and were all so generous. It was mad, there must have been 40-50 cakes - they were everywhere, on every surface there was cake! Some people had baked five or six cakes to bring and it seemed like every mum dropped by after the school run - the house was full to bursting.

"I did a raffle and there were so many prizes that everyone went home with something! It was a lovely joyful event, full of laughter, and just what we needed. My husband works just down the road and it was so noisy in the house he said at one point he could hear us!

“This is not a flash in the pan, I’m going to do Bake & Share event every year now plus I’ve got lots of other fundraisers planned, including a skydive, car boot sales and sponsored walks. I’m on a mission now,” says Dawn.